One day, I woke up and realized that if anything was going to change in my life, I was going to have to be the one to make it happen.

You will remember that I shared this part of my journey earlier this spring:

In the last two years, I have become more “myself”. Two major things have happened since 2010:

-I turned 30.

-I magically grew a back bone.

These two developments have influenced every area of my life.

Before I turned 30, I had become used to being treated as incapable. Not good enough. Stupid. Inconsequential. Ridiculous. Always wrong.

Things came to a head and I was at a breaking point in both my personal and professional life. Something was going to snap. And it did. In a good way.

I started to realize that I wasn’t the one with the problem. These people were sick and I was allowing them to treat me according to their twisted perceptions and unhealthy sense of entitlement.

I stopped trying to please these critics who would never be satisfied anyway. If I did everything wrong anyway, why bother? It was freeing.

I went to a professional development workshop where people asked me about what strategies I had used for certain obstacles. They excitedly wrote down my ideas. I saw that I wasn’t an idiot as I had been made to feel.

I started to pay attention to the way I felt. For the first time since Deeds was born, I began to exercise regularly. At night, in my home, with DVD’s, after the kids were in bed. Though weight loss wasn’t the goal (I just wanted to follow the prescribed “30 minutes, 5 times a week”), my body began to change shape, and I liked it.

I discovered a dairy sensitivity and cut it out of my diet. A lifetime of problem skin began to clear up. I cut gluten out of my diet. I began to eat a high raw vegetarian diet. My skin looked kind of awesome.

I’m actually way healthier than I was 15 years ago. I never would have believed that after two kids, I would be in the best shape of my life.

I believe that getting in shape helped change my mindset so that I felt that I CAN reach my goals, and I CAN live my dreams.

Every morning, I start the day with a big drink of water and my vitamins.

I take SAM-e for a mood boost and for joint health, Omega 3-6-9, and B vitamins. Sometimes I take D vitamins and MSM.

I eat a breakfast of fresh fruit, green tea, and sometimes carrot juice. I do yoga stretches led by a yoga app I have on my phone, or I do the 5 Tibetan Rites. I also have a few 5 minutes workout circuit apps on my phone. I find them quite handy when you only have a short amount of time to work out.

My meals are usually fruits or vegetables; I avoid gluten as much as possible, but I am not a Celiac so I don’t have to worry about things like soy sauce.

I write down my goals, and desires, even small ones. I keep a short list of things I want to achieve, written large, where I can see it.

One of my goals might seem silly, but I wanted to win a good phone. Since I just returned to the US from living in Asia for 9 years, I didn’t have a cell phone. I wrote it down along with 4 other goals and displayed it prominently on my desk for about a month. Well, guess who won a MyTouch slide from T-Mobile at the BlogHer 2011 conference? ME!

Each night before bed, I jot down the things I would like to accomplish the next day. I write down practical things (such as “put check in the mail”) but also aspirational things (such as “I will continue to attract amazing opportunities for my video work”)

This helps keep me in a positive mindset that these things CAN and WILL happen!

Every day, I find something to laugh about. This is something I have always been good at.

I feel really excited about where life can take me as I live it intentionally, taking care of myself, body and mind.

I’ve been browsing through your blog and this post hit really close to home for me. I went through a depressive state for about a year. I went through a horrible break-up with a verbally abusive person that left me absolutely heartbroken AND alone in a new town. I had been told that I was stupid, ill-educated, dumb and I had started to BELIEVE it. After a while I had the same thought – “the only person who can change my attitude is me and I have to choose happiness”. So, I did. I learned to embrace being alone and I became so much stronger and started to love myself again. Although I hate your heartbreak, it is comforting to be able to share and relate to someone who went through the same things.